Waste Reduction

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Of course, there are questions about the durability of the bottles being recycled. Will we get the right bang for our buck by recycling? There are questions about transportation, the weight of glass and so on. However, the thrust of the point is excellent. I am old enough to remember getting a penny, or a penny ha’penny, back on a bottle of lemonade and I look back to those days with—well, I am showing my age now.

The targets for Wales are 70% recycling by 2025 and zero waste by 2050, so they are very ambitious. Without praising the previous Plaid Cymru-Labour Government too much, I shall say that Wales is the first country in the UK to adopt statutory recycling targets for municipal waste, following a Measure passed by the Assembly. It was one of the first measures that the Assembly managed to pass on its own. The Waste (Wales) Measure 2010 received royal approval in December. The first statutory recycling target set under that Measure is 52% by 2012. Clearly, therefore, there is a pace of activity in Wales that I am sure will be interesting to people over the border.

Wales is also the only country in the UK in which every local authority offers a separate food or food and green waste collection. That is the case throughout the country. It was the first country to introduce the landfill allowance scheme and it looks as though it will be the first to introduce a carrier bag charge, in October 2011. We will see, of course, but that is the intention and it has widespread support. My local authority, Gwynedd, achieved a recycling rate of 44% in 2010-11 and, I hope, will achieve the target of 52% in 2013.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman tell us a little about how the clearly more progressive, more advanced policies in Wales are being received by the general public? What binds the general public to those higher aspirations?

[Hywel Williams]

Speaking generally, I think that there is a political consensus in Wales anyway. In the recent election, it was sometimes difficult to see the difference even between a party of government and a party of opposition. There is a consensus on these issues and there is a tradition. I was talking to someone about this the other day. We used to call the rubbish not the rubbish, but the salvage—what we would be salvaging from rubbish. There is a long tradition of that. I have no idea what the basis is for what the hon. Gentleman refers to, but perhaps what is important is the outcome—a higher recycling rate.

My local authority is introducing weekly food collections. There had been concern about bi-weekly collections and possible dangers to health. The authority is bringing in weekly food collections, with a target for the amount collected by 2013. As I said earlier, it works with two third-sector organisations: Antur Waunfawr and Seren. They sort high-quality plastics and will be moving to lower-quality plastics quite soon. They also collect textiles. Those activities produce not only an income stream for the organisations involved, but 35 jobs for people with learning difficulties at Antur Waunfawr, so it is a win-win situation.

Antur also runs a furniture recycling scheme and a confidential waste shredding scheme for 450 customers throughout north Wales, including MPs such as myself, and it is now employing five young people on apprenticeships in recycling. There is a great deal of progress. The chief executive of Antur, Menna Jones, recently said to me—I am translating—“I don’t know about the big society, but small social enterprises are achieving a lot.” There is a good deal to emulate over the border.

At the same time, Friends of the Earth is pressing for another approach—halving residual waste by 2020. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that. Targeting the reducing of residual waste—black bag waste that cannot be recycled—would reward waste prevention, reuse and recycling, as well as reducing the use of landfill and incineration. Friends of the Earth argues that zero waste must not mean zero waste to landfill, with some being diverted to incineration. It points out the inverse correlation between incineration and recycling.

Denmark has a very high level of incineration but a low level of recycling. There might be a causal relationship there. Friends of the Earth points to other European examples. Flanders has a ban on landfill or incineration of unsorted waste; it also has a very big network of reuse shops. Irish local authorities can levy a charge on waste incineration, and similar taxes exist in Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. There is a great deal that can be learned not only over the border within the UK, but from other European countries.

I said earlier that this is real nappy week; indeed, that is what led me to apply for the debate in the first place. Earlier this year, I visited a small company in my constituency called BabyKind. I should say that I have no particular interest in that company, but I was impressed by its enterprise, by its commitment to its products and customers and by its enthusiasm for the wider cause of promoting environmental sustainability.

Some people might think that my referring to real nappies in this debate is eccentric or even frivolous. However, the waste produced by throwaway nappies is a significant burden. The Nappy Alliance says that 3 billion nappies are thrown away every year—8 million a day—making up 4% of household waste. That is a huge amount—a huge negative contribution to the mountain of waste. Throwaway nappies that go to landfill add to the problems that we all recognise: the increased pressure on landfill sites, the waste of land, the potential water pollution and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane.

The Nappy Alliance also states that, according to the Environment Agency, the decomposition time scale for some of the materials and chemicals used in throwaway nappies is more than 500 years, so we are storing up problems for the future. In that respect, throwaway nappies are clearly misnamed when they are called “disposable”—they are far from disposable.

Debate on this matter has been distorted, although some would go further and say that it has been plagued by misinformation, unintended or otherwise. On Monday this week, an article in a national newspaper criticised local authorities for spending money on promoting real nappies. It claimed that

“taxpayers’ money was poured into real nappy campaigns even though the notion that re-useable nappies are better for the environment was discredited years ago.”

It further claimed that there was “overwhelming evidence” in 2007 that such campaigns “were pointless”.

I believe that that claim refers to the well publicised Environment Agency life cycle analysis report on nappies in 2006, which some Members might recall. The report was prominent in the press at the time—in 2006, not 2007—and it made similar assertions, if in a less striking way. However, when the report was revised in 2008, it showed that reusable nappies could be about 40% better for the environment than throwaways. News of that revision seems to have escaped the notice of Monday’s newspaper—although I am sure that it is simply the result of a busy journalist not doing his homework.

Real nappies will directly solve much of the landfill problem, being reused and even passed on to be used by other children, as recently happened in my family. Their use offers local authorities an excellent cost saving. According to the Nappy Alliance, the cost of disposing of throwaway nappies in England is £90 million per year. Real nappies also fit into the waste hierarchy at a much higher level than throwaways, which are poor fuel for incineration and tend to go for disposal. They are also higher in the hierarchy than recycling, and that too should be borne in mind, given that some look to incentivise recycling while ignoring waste minimisation and reuse. That is another point for the future.

I realise that I have ranged fairly broadly in my speech, but it is necessary to set the matter in context. However, I draw the Minister’s attention to the question posed by Friends of the Earth about the definition of zero waste. Is it zero to landfill, or is it in fact zero? I would also like to know what his Department is doing to promote the reuse of real nappies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) on securing this debate. These are vital issues that deserve much greater attention than they currently receive, and the need for action in this area is pressing. Let me also say that it is a pleasure to face the Minister again. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has made some interesting and compelling points about the issues facing his own constituency.

As the father of four children, the youngest of whom is five months old, I have to say that nappy week poses a real challenge in terms of trying to convince people of the benefits of moving towards more sustainable nappy use. The Minister knows that he will have my support and the support of Opposition Members when the Government seek to do the right thing. None the less, one year into this Conservative-led Government, we can see that environmental policies do not rate highly on their agenda. Regrettably, over the past 12 months, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has become a struggling Department. It has been described as being in special measures. It has settled for the biggest departmental budget cut across Whitehall; it has struggled to articulate policy; and it has been forced into a series of U-turns. It is a picture of absolute chaos. I genuinely regret the fact that the Department that is meant to be the custodian of the green agenda is in such a poor state.

In his recent review of the Government’s environmental record, Jonathan Porritt summarised the situation most succinctly.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mr Reed]

In an excellent piece of work undertaken for Friends of the Earth, Jonathon Porritt reviewed the Government’s environmental record one year in:

“the bad and the positively ugly indisputably outweigh the good…It is…unavoidably depressing to see just how rapidly things have gone backwards since May 2010.”

Few would disagree with that assessment, and the ongoing inertia over waste policy illustrates the point further, with the Government routinely being accused of lacking ambition, as long-running disputes between DEFRA and the Department for Communities and Local Government continue—disputes that usually end with an outright DCLG victory.

The hon. Member for Arfon is right that waste policy must be based on a whole-systems approach. That means that it should concentrate not simply on recycling, but on reusing resources and reducing the resources used by society. In short, it should consider how we use the resources available to us in the most sustainable, environmental and economic ways possible, and not simply how we deal with the waste produced by utilising resources.

The Labour Government’s record in this area was very good and was widely recognised as such. The Independent reported last year that

“waste management was one of the real success stories of the last government, which in a mere decade managed to raise the amount of household waste going for recycling…to nearly 40 per cent”.

Next month is the publication of the Government’s much vaunted and much delayed waste review, which has so far, regrettably, failed to set the political world alight. That is a mutual regret for everyone involved in this policy area. There are issues about the review to raise here, and no doubt there will be more issues after the report’s publication. Will the Minister confirm that it will be more than a “series of case studies”, as some within DEFRA have briefed? Building on that, will the waste review replace the 2007 waste strategy? If so, what is the time scale? Local authorities, businesses, communities and individuals require certainty on this, and they are not receiving it now.

On the subject of certainty, I hope that the Minister will enlighten the Chamber on the recycling targets for local authorities in England. Will the waste review cover the targets and, more importantly, does DEFRA believe in such targets for local authorities in England? Can he guarantee that the waste framework directive will apply to England as well as to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all of which have significantly more ambitious recycling targets than the mandatory 50% by 2020? Is he content for Britain’s minimum 50% target to be met by home nations other than England exceeding that minimum requirement?

Surely the Minister does not want England to lag behind, but wants to enable the English regions to benefit from the economic opportunities that the waste industry presents, which the devolved Administrations seem to acknowledge and enthusiastically pursue. Will he state categorically today that, however it is achieved, England will meet the minimum requirements of the directive? If DEFRA has rolled over again because the Department for Communities and Local Government has once again trumped it, and recycling targets for England are to be abandoned, will he assure us that the UK will meet the directive’s minimum target?

What is the future of the joint municipal waste management strategies, which currently require local authorities in two-tier local authority areas to work together? What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of the strategies’ removal on recycling rates and other performance goals? The fear among non-governmental organisations, environmental activists and others who care about this area is that political dogma is being placed above real outcomes, results and improvements to our environment, which is distorting environment and waste management policy.

The economic opportunities that effective resource management present are significant. The hon. Member for Arfon is right about the discourse in the country at large in all the nations of the UK. We need to change the terms of the debate and the frame of reference, which is a common responsibility for both Government and Opposition Members. Friends of the Earth estimates that 50,000 new jobs might be created across the economy, if recycling rates were to rise to 70%.

The CBI is even more optimistic about the benefits of a comprehensive approach to resource management policy. It recently warned the Government about the timidity in their approach to waste policy, and it rightly identified a series of quick wins that the country might secure if the Government were bolder and more ambitious—if they choose to show that boldness and ambition, we will certainly support them. The CBI identified providing massive business opportunities, meeting climate change targets, bolstering energy security and unlocking infrastructure investments from the private sector as just some of the benefits of a comprehensive waste policy.

As 300 of the UK’s largest existing landfill sites have to close, the CBI estimates that it will require £1 billion of investment in approximately 2,000 new waste management plants over the next 10 years to meet Britain’s minimum waste framework directive targets. We have fewer than 10 years in extraordinarily difficult economic circumstances to find an average of more than £1 billion a year to invest in the infrastructure that we need to meet our targets. That will require private and public investment, so how, credibly and specifically, do the Government intend to achieve it?

Where is the detailed Government strategy that sets out the investment required by and the roles and responsibilities of the public and private sectors? Will the Minister provide us with details of how the change will happen and what discussions he has had with the Treasury about the contribution that it will inevitably have to make towards the effort? The issue needs effective project management, not political abandonment. Will he also update the Chamber on the infraction proceedings caused by the Government’s late transposition of the waste framework directive into law?

The Minister is aware that energy from waste is an incredibly exciting policy area, so will he spell out Government policy? Many hon. Members have mentioned it, but can he be clear about what, specifically, Government policy on waste incineration is? Ambiguity is not an option. What assessment has his Department made of the impact that the review of feed-in tariffs is having on investment in energy from waste projects? I was fortunate enough to visit a multimillion pound anaerobic digestion plant on a farm in Haselmere only yesterday—it is a superb scheme which I urge him to visit. It is clear to me and to others that continued uncertainty is damaging confidence in investment in the sector.

I know that the Minister is a good man and wants to do the right thing. We both know that the Government have relegated their environmental policy concerns. I have asked specific questions, and I look forward to specific answers now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise; this is nothing to do with the Secretary of State. A Member must not leave the Chamber before his or her question has been concluded, whatever other pressures there might be.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

Recycling under the last Labour Government increased threefold, but this Government’s continued delays over the waste review have deprived British business of the certainty that it needs if it is to use resources in a smarter way and improve its reuse and recycling of materials. This is damaging for the economy and for the environment. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that the waste review will enable business to make up the ground lost as a result of Government delay? Can she also guarantee that it will provide the right regulatory framework to enable businesses to invest in these areas?

[Mrs Spelman]

The hon. Gentleman wrongly credits his party with being at the centre of the improvement in recycling rates. The fact is that local authorities have achieved this, and the majority of them are Conservative controlled to boot. Perhaps we can also nail this myth about delay. Our business plan makes it clear that the waste review, which was launched in June last year, will be published in June this year. This is not a question of delay. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait just a short while to see the importance that the Government attach to undertaking a thorough review of waste, which includes picking up some of the mess that the previous Government left behind.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

We are taking forward all 92 of the Pitt recommendations—well, certainly 91 of them. The question of flood funding has been raised frequently in the House. We have protected capital funding works over and above all other areas of activity because we recognise that that is an absolute priority for the future.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

This Department has taken the biggest hit across government, and flood defence spending has been cut by 27%. The Pitt review did indeed recommend Exercise Watermark. It also recommended that flood defence spending should be increased above inflation year on year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) said. Will the Minister tell us what lessons have been learned from Exercise Watermark? What does he say to those communities who thought that their flood defences were going ahead but now find that they are not? Can he guarantee that they will be able to access universal flood insurance after the statement of principle ends soon?

[Richard Benyon]

We have had many discussions on this matter. The 8% difference between the last four years’ spending on capital and the next four years’ spending shows that this is a massive priority—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) knows that continuing with this tired old riff is 180^o away from the facts. We are working closely with the insurance industry to ensure that we can move beyond the statement of principles after 2013. The lessons from Exercise Watermark are being learned and will be learned in the future.

Water and Sewerage Charges (South West Water)

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure finally to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I congratulate the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) on securing this debate. I have taken note of the attention that he has given these issues in parliamentary questions and, most recently, in early-day motions. I am well aware of the anger, frustration and even desperation that many of his constituents feel as a result of the long-standing problems with water and sewerage charges in his area.

As the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, MPs of all political persuasions across the south-west have focused a great deal on this issue. I have talked about it at length with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who are particularly exercised by the lack of progress on the Walker review—an issue to which I will return—and by the continued suffering of their constituents, particularly the poorest ones.

It would be wrong of me not to pay tribute to the outstanding work of Linda Gilroy, who did a huge amount of work in ensuring that the previous Parliament was aware of and understood these issues, and any future progress will necessarily be down in part to the remarkable effort that she expended.

[Andrew George]

It is worth ensuring that that commendation for the work done by the former hon. Member, Linda Gilroy, has cross-party support. As a fellow officer of the all-party group on water, I know that her commitment and involvement took the campaign a great deal further than it would have gone otherwise. Her work certainly should be commended, and the Minister will no doubt recognise that, too.

[Mr Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. With his typical generosity, he demonstrates that a solution can be found on a cross-party basis.

As somebody who is closely associated with my own region, the north-west, I understand how Members of Parliament can form a regional identity and share concerns across party lines about issues that are of outstanding regional importance, as water is in the south-west. I also understand how politicians from other regions who pontificate about regional issues, where those almost certainly require national solutions, can quickly arouse suspicions among MPs from the region in question. As a Member of Parliament from Cumbria, which is surrounded by the Irish sea and the Cumbrian fells, which is partly within the Lake district, which is sparsely populated, where tourism is incredibly important and where water and sewerage bills have risen exponentially since 1989 to become the highest outside the south-west, I understand.

The average annual bill for water and sewerage services in the south-west has risen by 72.2% between 1989 and 2010-11—the highest increase in the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View stated in her Adjournment debate last year:

“The problem we face is simple: water rates in the south-west are 25% higher than the UK average, placing an unfair burden on…my constituents and all residents across the south-west of England.”—[Official Report, 14 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 710.]

The average bill for South West Water customers is significantly higher for 2010-11 than elsewhere in the country, at £486, as opposed to a national average of £339, as I think has been mentioned. In addition, unmetered customers also face much higher bills, with an average of £721 for South West Water consumers, as opposed to a national average of £394.

As has been roundly discussed, that does not happen by accident. The widely condemned Thatcher privatisation of the water industry in the 1980s led directly to many of the problems that we face today, but the south-west’s significant demographic and economic characteristics reinforce the problems associated with high bills. They must be understood in an integrated way. They cannot be considered in isolation. As has been touched on, 22% of South West Water customers are pensioners, although being a pensioner should not be used as a blanket term to denote people living in financial hardship; many hon. Members would share that view. In addition, I think that it has been proved that lone parents have more affordability problems than single pensioners. The percentage of lone parents in the south-west is at the national average.

An extremely high proportion of the population live in sparsely populated rural areas—something that I am familiar with. That makes service provision more expensive and diminishes economies of scale. The policy solutions should address the problems that are faced today. The fact that housing affordability issues are the most acute in the UK outside London should be considered. As has been alluded to, the region is the UK’s top tourist destination. The population rises more than by 25% in peak tourist weeks, with the result that the demand for water is a third higher than for the year as a whole.

I understand that South West Water understands those issues, and it should be commended, as it has been, in part, by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, for investing more that £1.5 billion in the clean sweep programme, which has done so much to transform sewage treatment and the natural environment. However, bills for consumers in the south-west are now 25% higher than those in the rest of the country, and for the most vulnerable in the south-west community—those struggling alone on a pension, lone parents trying to raise their families and single people living in rented accommodation—water bills present a struggle. It has been estimated that their bills can take 10% of their incomes. Surely, that cannot be acceptable. I pay tribute to the Consumer Council for Water for the work that it has done and continues to do in trying to influence prices for consumers not only in the south-west but throughout the country.

We can talk at some other stage—I have no doubt that we will—about the current economic situation, its causes and its potential remedies, but it is certain that the people in our society who will feel the effects of the recession the most, and who will without doubt feel the brunt of the Government’s cuts the most, will be those who already suffer the most from rising water charges, by comparison with other consumers. It cannot be right for up to 10% of their incomes to go on purchasing what is a basic entitlement—a right—while food and fuel costs are rising, the Government have raised VAT to 20%, unemployment is rising and job insecurity is everywhere. Action must be taken sooner rather than later.

The issues associated with water and sewerage charging in the south-west are difficult. The hon. Member for Torbay called them intractable. The Minister knows that they are difficult and has said as much in this place and to the Select Committee on a number of occasions. He understands the difficulties of the decisions and recognises the difficulty for many people who face such water charges. I believe that the Minister wants to do the right thing, but wanting to do the right thing and doing it are very far away from each other. Intentions count for little. The difference between intention and action is the same as the difference between night and day. It is difficult for DEFRA Ministers, as the Secretary of State hovers around the exit door to get things done, and the Department risks becoming inert, like many others in Whitehall, as sackings loom and the near 30% departmental cut begins to bite, but a lot of the heavy work on this issue has already been done, in the form of the Walker and Cave reviews.

The Government announced in August 2010 that they would review the regulation of the water industry to assess whether the current framework, including Ofwat’s statutory duties, remained fit for purpose. Does the Minister believe that Ofwat is fit for purpose, and if not, why not? The industry review is also meant to assess how well Ofwat translates guidance from the Government and its statutory duties into its decision making. With that in mind, did the Government give any advice to Ofwat with regard to water pricing in the south-west before Ofwat set the price for the region for this financial year? Did the Government give any guidance to Ofwat about the problems being faced by south-west customers before the latest price rise was announced? Inflation is currently 4.7%, yet Ofwat’s allowed increase for South West Water customers averages at 5.1%. Have the Government discussed that with Ofwat at any stage, before or after the announcement, and is the Minister happy with that level?

I understand that the water review will directly inform the Government’s White Paper, to be published in June. Will the Minister confirm that the White Paper will be published no later than June? He will understand that it needs the fullest parliamentary scrutiny if it is to command broad support. The fundamental question is whether, almost a year after taking office, the Minister can explain what is halting the implementation of the Walker review. It was a superb piece of work that commanded support from hon. Members on both sides of the House and that held within it, as has been mentioned, many potential remedies to the problems of the south-west and South West Water consumers.

Will the Minister today give hon. Members a categorical assurance of a commitment in principle by the Government to implementation of the Walker findings and to a timetable for implementation? That is not much to ask. Further, will he confirm that the reduced capacity of DEFRA has in no way affected the implementation of the Walker recommendations? Will he also address fears that the Government’s review and the production of its White Paper have prohibited the implementation of Walker thus far? There are fears, which so far are justifiable, that the Government are backtracking on Walker. In the words of the American gospel hymn, “How long, O Lord, how long?”

Finally, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health has defined water poverty as beginning when a household’s water bill equates to more that 3% of its income after tax. As we have heard, in the south-west, some households pay in the region of 10% of their income on water bills. Does the Minister know what percentage of people living in the south-west live in water poverty? Will he undertake to publish an assessment of how many people are living in water poverty by region and by constituency, and ensure that his White Paper will contain measures with which to eradicate water poverty? I believe that there is much common ground on which we can build.

Flood Risk Management

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) for securing this debate. He has demonstrated yet again his considerable knowledge of the issues, and I think that Members of all parties are grateful to him for securing this debate so that we can air them. I commend the Environment Agency workers who have been working around the clock, as they always do, in the north-west of England over the past few weeks, where rainfall has been high, heightening flood risks considerably.

Communities at risk of flooding require certainty from Government, and that is what I think has been at the core of everyone’s argument today. As I have said, we seek to work with the Government where we can and when we agree that they are doing the right thing. Issues such as flooding and flood defences should be above the typical, tribal knockabout of this House and of British politics in general, but we will hold the Government to account when we believe that they are not doing the right thing or acting in the public interest, and when we believe that their actions are likely to hurt those most in need.

We are all agreed that flooding is a life-changing issue. It is also a complex one and its policy solutions, or the solutions that we as politicians can provide towards the problem, are not simple. Sadly, flood defence in this country, as well as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs the bodies that rely upon it, and the people whom those organisations serve, are now beginning to pay the price for what many people and independent commentators believe is the Secretary of State’s fevered desire to be the first Secretary of State in the new Government to give the Chancellor what he wants—big, indiscriminate cuts, with little regard for how they could be accommodated, or for the effect that they will have on the Department’s core areas of work. We cannot escape that fact.

In many ways, the debacle over forestry privatisation has illustrated what we already knew about the Government—they are riven with contradictions and lack a clear focus on issues of real concern to people in too many areas throughout the country. There is no argument about the fact that there will be a 27% cut in flood defence spending this year—it has been confirmed by the Environment Agency. I have the greatest respect for the Minister—we have a good working relationship on the whole—but he has himself confirmed to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that cuts are taking place. The Prime Minister, however, is apparently unaware of that, or simply disinterested in the detail of the policies that his Government are prosecuting.

The Prime Minister has told the House that it is “simply not the case” that there will be a reduction in spending on flood defences, and that the comprehensive spending review settlement is “roughly the same” as in previous years but, in fact, it is not. Cutting is not the way to deliver the savings that the country needs; it is, in fact, a false economy. I trust that the Minister will encourage the Prime Minister to correct the record.

As I have said, communities that are at risk of flooding—we are talking about 5.2 million homes, as well as business properties—require certainty from Government, not a changing of the goal posts or an abandonment or reneging on agreements. The communities of York, Thirsk, Morpeth and elsewhere feel that sense of abandonment right now as their flood defence schemes fall by the wayside. It is a fact that the Government have announced a 27% cut in capital investment for flood defence spending for 2011-12, which means that many communities will face genuine uncertainty about their futures as projects are delayed or shelved. The cuts will leave many homes and businesses at a heightened risk of flooding.

The Minister said in the main Chamber today that those are deferrals, not cancellations, but they will feel like cancellations. The statement of principles is likely to expire before any investments are made, so those areas that are today missing out on flood defence investments face the prospect of being thrown at the mercy of a bear market when trying to find future insurance. Will the Minister confirm that he will not allow the insurance premiums or excess payments of anyone in any area to go through the roof as a result of his Government’s cancellations or delays? Does he agree that those areas that had expected investments, and that were told that investments would be forthcoming before the expiry of the statement of principles in 2013 have now been prejudiced? If that is not the case, how is it not the case? How much public money has been spent designing, characterising and consulting upon the schemes that will not now go ahead?

We know that York is the tip of the iceberg, that many more cancellations are in the pipeline, and that the Government’s spending cuts will determine which schemes go ahead and which do not. Today is the day that the Government can finally choose to be honest with those home owners, communities and business owners who live in areas at risk of flooding, and tell all of us which schemes will be cancelled and which will go ahead, and not just for the next financial year—there is no security in that at all. I urge the Minister and all his colleagues in DEFRA not to hide behind the Environment Agency—today’s announcement was by DEFRA, not the Environment Agency.

Even after today’s announcement, there are many unanswered questions, an awful lot of drift and there remains a significant lack of transparency. One of the principal concerns is the expiry of the statement of principles in 2013. The statement is the agreement between Government and the insurance industry that currently underpins household insurance provision. So far, we have heard nothing that will reassure home owners or business property owners that the Government are working in an effective way with the insurance industry to resolve the real threat of some homes and businesses becoming uninsurable and unmortgageable following the expiry of the statement of principles.

Some insurance experts have warned that when the statement of principles comes to an end, it will be devastating for consumers. Others have warned that it will be bad for consumers but a great opportunity for brokers. Does the Minister agree with that? Simon Douglas of the AA’s insurance division told the Secretary of State in a letter:

“Millions of people are at risk of inundation from overflowing rivers, coasts and estuaries during extremes of weather and that risk is increasing all the time. If spending isn’t maintained, it will compromise the statement of principles, which could see many homes become uninsurable.”

David Williams of AXA went even further by saying:

“We are committed to the Statement of Principles, subject to spending. Now that spending has been reduced, you could say all bets are off. The Government is in breach of its side of the bargain, so if insurers wanted to stop providing cover, they would probably be able to. The problem is nobody wants to be the first and end up getting harangued in the press.”

I think that all Members on both sides of the House would agree that the expiration of the statement of principles is a ticking time bomb, not just for individuals, home owners or business people, but for whole communities. It is hugely economically and socially significant.

What assessment have the Government undertaken on the impact of their budget cuts on the universal coverage of insurance provision for homes at risk of flooding? Will the Minister publish that assessment? The ongoing negotiations between the insurance industry and Government are of profound importance, so will he tell us, categorically, whether he is committed to the principle of universal insurance cover? If so, will he be transparent about his negotiations with the insurance industry and publish an update on them in the House of Commons Library? Finally on this issue, does he agree that the expiry of the statement of principles, without any meaningful system to replace it, will be a disaster for consumers, and will he seek a system of universal insurance cover for whatever follows the current one beyond 2013?

There are other critical questions for the Minister to answer. In 2010-11, the previous Labour Government allocated £35 million for Pitt and for adaptation budgets. That was outlined in the CSR for 2007-08 to 2010-11. Recently, the Minister announced that £21 million will be provided in 2011-12 to lead local flood authorities. Will he confirm that that is different money from that announced by the previous Government? Is it new money?

The Minister will be aware that local authorities were awarded £100 million for flood funding in 2010-11 through the Communities and Local Government formula grant. What contact has he had with his counterpart in CLG about the level of funding available to local authorities next year for flooding and related investment? The concern throughout the House is that local authorities have been given new responsibilities but no new money, and that local flood defence schemes in many areas face a double cut.

Local authorities are, of course, key to our national efforts to improve flood resilience. The 2009 DEFRA annual report states:

“Over the next 2 years we aim to offer an improved standard of protection against flooding or coastal erosion risk for 145,000 more homes”.

According to a written answer form the Minister on 27 July 2010, we are actually due to exceed that figure and reach “at least 160,000 households”, which is a glowing endorsement of the investment that we made, and I welcome his recognition of it. The Secretary of State said of the next CSR period:

“We intend that, by March 2015, 145,000 households will be better protected”—[Official Report, 19 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 57WS.]

Will the Minister therefore confirm that the Government plan to do less over four years than we achieved in just two—yes or no?

The Minister said in today’s announcement that 112,000 homes would be protected. Will he confirm that that 112,000 is part of the 145,000 target previously mentioned? If so, what will become of the schemes for the remaining 33,000? The Minister also mentioned the role of specialist providers in relation to the provision of insurance cover. I think that many would say that that hinted towards an end to universal coverage, but I hope that he will refute that. What does he expect specialist providers to do, and how will they keep their excess and insurance premium costs comparable with today’s rates?

My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) talked about the cancellation of the Morpeth scheme, which has been halted because budget cuts have changed the outcome measures via which the EA has to assess projects. Will the Minister admit that that is the reason for the scheme’s delay and give the people of that town the clarity they deserve?

This is an essential point. The Minister talked briefly about value for money. Of course, anyone in his position is tasked with spending public money properly and I support him in doing that, but what is his definition of value for money in relation to public spending to protect homes? Will he acknowledge that there is a real fear that his Department’s budget cuts and his changing definitions of value for money mean that particularly sparsely populated areas at heightened flood risk, such as the one I represent and those that many hon. Members here represent, are on their own and that the Government have abandoned them? Will he give a guarantee that his budgets cuts will not prejudice flood defence schemes in the more rural, disparate towns and villages that are outside the larger urban conurbations? Such a move would be a scandal and I condemn it.

Finally, will the Minister lay a copy of the full Environment Agency funding allocation in the Library, so that hon. Members from all parties can examine the detail and inform their constituents about the current state of affairs? I am proud of my Government’s record in office in relation to flood defence spending: £2.36 billion over the past four years, 160,000 homes protected and the introduction of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. I am grateful to the hon. Member for York Central for introducing the debate. We need to debate these issues urgently in Government time on the Floor of the House. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us that assurance today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I am conscious of the scheme’s importance to the people of Leeds, and much work can be done to ensure that parts of it are certainly brought forward in a viable form. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had discussions with the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues and she will be happy, as I will, to discuss the intricacies of the scheme. At the moment, it will cost roughly £250,000 per property, which is a difficult sum to get around in terms of value for money. Many other schemes provide much better benefit, but I very much hope that we can work with the local authority and with hon. Members to ensure that, in time, we bring forward elements of it.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is a matter of fact that the Government have decided to cut flood defence spending by 27%. Those cuts mean that the Environment Agency has had to change the way in which it allocates resources through its outcome-measure assessments, and that has already had an effect upon flood defence schemes throughout the country. Will the Secretary of State today give a guarantee—not assurances, but a guarantee—that her cuts will not prejudice flood defence schemes in rural areas and other less populated areas, where the economies of scale for flood defence spending are very different from schemes in more urban areas?

[Richard Benyon]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that proposals under the payment-for-outcomes scheme, on which we are consulting, will make things easier for communities that have traditionally missed out on flood funding, such as those he describes in rural areas, and that funding allocation will be clear. I shall just correct him, however. On a direct comparison of funding, we are spending approximately 8% less than the previous Government over the same period. One year ago, his party announced 50% capital cuts, and if he were sitting on the Government Benches and intending to favour flood funding, he would have to explain where else he was going to make cuts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I cannot comment on individual projects ahead of Environment Agency decisions, which it has said it will make after the end of the consultation period on payment for outcomes, which concludes on 16 February. However, my hon. Friend’s concern about flooding in her constituency is taken very seriously by all of us.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

All on this side of the House share the condolences expressed by the Secretary of State for the Environment Agency worker who sadly lost their life.

I am afraid that the confusion mentioned by the Secretary of State is on the Government’s part. DEFRA’s 2009 report stated that 145,000 homes would be protected from flooding by March 2011. They have abandoned that aim because of huge cuts to the EA’s flood defence budget—27% next year—and instead now hope to protect the same number of homes by 2015, two years after the current agreement with the insurance industry expires. That deliberate choice to delay will cause widespread anxiety and uncertainty for homeowners, businesses and local authorities up and down the country. The Government should now be honest with the country: either they know which flood defence schemes will be abandoned and are aware of the consequences of those cuts, or the cuts are indiscriminate, and the consequences are not understood. Does the Secretary of State know which schemes will be abandoned—yes or no?

[Mrs Spelman]

I just said in answer to the previous question that the Environment Agency would make decisions on all pending schemes after the close of the consultation on 16 February. As regards the figure that Opposition Members keep quoting, at no point has the figure of 145,000 properties receiving more protection ever been attributed to a time any sooner than 2015, the end of the spending review period. It would be inappropriate to compare spending levels with those of the previous Government, because Labour has failed to say how it would have accommodated the 50% cut in capital that the previous Chancellor had committed it to.

Flooding (West Cumbria)

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tony Cunningham]

I thank hon. Members. The families and friends of those who lost their lives and the entire community of west Cumbria will have greatly appreciated that.

My memories of the floods are almost surreal. I had already spoken with the Environment Agency when river levels were rising, but when I walked into my local in Workington, the Green Dragon, everyone gathered there was, unusually, glued to the television screen, watching with incredulity. They could not believe what they were seeing: lifeboats on the main street of a small market town, and floods that, at their height, were eight or nine feet high. At one stage, the lifeboats could not be launched because of the speed of the river. I rang the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who had just got back from Brazil. He agreed to come up, and the following morning I was standing with him on the market place in Cockermouth, just off the main street, and the water around us was still very high. All we could hear were helicopters, and there was a bright yellow RAF helicopter winching someone to safety.

The phrase I used in my first television interview after the floods was not mine. While my right hon. Friend was being interviewed, I turned to someone from the town and said, “This is just unbelievable.” He replied, “Yeah, Tony, it’s like something out of the Bible.” The Sky television interviewer then asked me how I would describe the floods, and I immediately said that they were of biblical proportions. That was copied and echoed by many newspapers and so on, and people said that I was clever to think of it, but the words were those of a constituent who just happened to be standing next to me.

On that first day, we got in touch with Cumbria Community Foundation and launched an appeal. The nuclear industry in particular was extremely generous, giving tens of thousands of pounds to start it off. Cockermouth, Workington and Keswick are relatively small towns, but we raised about £2.5 million in that appeal, which says everything about the generosity of west Cumbrians, of Cumbrians and of the rest of the country. In fact, donations came in from other parts of the world.

The real heroes in the early days were the emergency services. What I am about to say I say not in anger, but in sadness. The police were absolutely superb in those early days, and yet today they are facing 20% cuts. The police community support officers who did such a fantastic job are now threatened with redundancy, and I understand that the number of local neighbourhood policing teams is to be cut from 21 to 10.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about our local police. Like me, he spends a lot of time speaking with members of the police force, including PCSOs. After the year they have been through, how do they feel they are being treated at the moment?

[Tony Cunningham]

They feel let down, is the honest answer. I recently received a letter from a PCSO in one of the towns I represent—I will not mention which one—who made just that point. She said, “When the community needed us, we were there. We now need the state, the county council or whatever to help and support us. I hope they will be there for us.”

Turning to the ambulance service, there was recently a vote of no confidence by nurses in both the West Cumberland hospital and Carlisle hospital in the local trust because of cuts, changes to working patterns and so on. They did an incredible job, and not only during the floods. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland was there for the people he represents after the shootings in his constituency, and we can only imagine what it must have been like for those nurses having to deal with that. In such small communities, the victims were often people they knew, and gunshot wounds, as we know, are particularly horrific. Yet this is where they are now.

With regard to the fire brigade, I would like to ask the Minister to respond to a quote from the Pitt report, which states:

“The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue, with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned”

as a necessity

“by a statutory duty.”

That recommendation was published in 2007, and I wonder where we are now. I talked with my local fire officers just a couple of hours ago. The centre where gold command worked during the floods was in Cockermouth, in the fire and rescue service headquarters. That is now going. The service has been offered either a relocation to Penrith, with a reduced number of staff, or outsourcing, which means they would all go. They co-ordinated the entire rescue, with the police, the coastguard and everything else, but that is what they tell me is happening to them.

[Tony Cunningham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and congratulate him—or perhaps offer my commiserations—on becoming president of his party. It is a great honour for him and for the county, so well done.

The hon. Gentleman can have a look at my speech notes, if he wants, but the next two words on the page are “mountain rescue”. Cockermouth mountain rescue team, in particular, gave immense help. It is unusual for people in my position to apologise, but I will, because we should have done as he suggests and exempted mountain rescue teams from VAT. I fed that into the Government whenever I could, but it was always resisted. I am happy to apologise for the fact that my Government—the Labour Government—did not do that. I fully support what he, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and others are trying to achieve, because it is important. There is a symbolism associated with it. It would say to the mountain rescue teams that they are recognised, and they should be rewarded and congratulated. As a little aside, in 2001, my very first question at Prime Minister’s Question Time was on mountain rescue teams. I have a great affinity with them, and I am happy to support what the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) proposes.

Something else that is close to my heart is the lifeboat service, and during the floods the Maryport inshore rescue lifeboat in particular did incredible work. Just before the regional development agencies were disbanded, we had agreed a sum of about £1 million to build a new lifeboat station. That service now has a brand-new lifeboat, but nowhere to put it. It had planned to put it into a brand-new lifeboat station in Maryport, but there is no RDA funding.

I could go on discussing the emergency services. The RAF, too, did an incredible job, as did the coastguard and an organisation that many of us did not really expect to see: the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That sounds strange, but the RSPCA was involved. I can remember being at a barrier set up to keep people away from the danger, and an elderly couple came up to me whose only concern—whose greatest concern—was their pet, which had been left in their flooded house. I got in touch with the RSPCA, which got a basket and rescued it. We should not forget its contribution.

The Environment Agency, in particular Glyn Vaughan and his team, did and are still doing a tremendous amount of work. In all the discussions and debates that the Minister will have on budgets, he should ensure that the Environment Agency is protected as much as possible.

[Mr Reed]

Before my hon. Friend moves on too much further, we do not yet know the cost of the Cumbria floods. I believe that the insurance adjustments are about £200 million so far—I repeat, so far. The RSPCA undertook a fundamental role in protecting livestock. Has he spoken to any farmers—I know that he has spent a great deal of time with them over the past year—who need feed for their herds and cattle about the role of the RSPCA and how much money it may have saved them?

[Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)]

Order. Could I ask Members who make contributions to speak into the microphone, so that the Hansard reporters can pick up what they say?

[Tony Cunningham]

Thank you, Mr Sheridan. I very much concur with my hon. Friend’s comments, and farmers are saying that. Let us not forget that hundreds, if not more, of cattle, sheep and other livestock ended up out in the Solway Firth, having come down the Cocker or Derwent rivers and been swept away. The livestock were hugely important, but the fields are still covered by boulders and debris and there is still a huge amount of work to be done.

I also pay tribute to volunteers, of whom there were hundreds during that extremely difficult time. I am not sure how many of us would put up complete strangers. I am not sure how many of us would say to someone we had just met on the street, who had only the clothes that they were wearing, “Come and share my house with me,” yet that is what people did. They offered their own homes and bedrooms; they fed others and looked after them.

Another group I pay tribute to—I know that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will agree with me—is the churches. We forget at our peril the spiritual side of all of this. When people are going through trauma and difficulties, having lost their home and possessions, it is important to be able to talk things through with others. The churches were on the streets, not just offering tea, coffee, sandwiches and so on, but listening and talking to people, and being there for them. The churches together played a huge role, particularly in Cockermouth.

I also pay tribute to the local authorities, who did a tremendous job, in particular Jill Stannard, the chief executive of Cumbria county council. Other Members here will have known Jim Buchanan, a good, honest and decent man who passed away quite recently. I pay a personal tribute to him. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I also thank Harry Dyke and Jill Elliott from Allerdale borough council.

While I am thanking people, I should thank the media—I do not do that very often—both national and local. The Sky coverage was excellent, as was that of Border Television, BBC Radio Cumbria, and in particular my local newspaper, The West Cumberland Times and Star, and Nicole Regan and her staff. Their conduct was fantastic.

[Mr Reed]

I am speaking into the microphone this time, Mr Sheridan.

My hon. Friend mentions the role of the media in the floods last year, and the crucial public service that they performed in informing people about water levels, weather forecasts and the emergency responses that were in place. Was he as saddened as I was to see such a stark contrast between how the media undertook and performed such a fundamental good this time last year, and how they acted in June?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Cunningham]

I offer my sympathies to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. As well as Hall Park View, the village of Barepot was completely devastated, but because it was on the other side of the river, people tended to forget about it. In Camerton, people could not bury their dead because the churchyard was flooded. Wives could not be buried next to their husbands and so on—it was horrendous.

On the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, there has to be co-ordination by a range of organisations, but the money has to be in place. I shall deal with local models a little later, but we could learn a great deal from the flood action groups—Sue Cashmore’s group in Cockermouth and Cecil Thompson’s group in Workington. Sue’s group, working with Brian Watson, actually has a structure. It has a chair and sub-committees, including ones dealing with the media and the Environment Agency. It is a very professional organisation, from which we could learn a great deal.

We have said that Cockermouth flooded, Workington flooded, houses flooded and so on, but that was only part of the story. The hon. Gentleman mentions Eamont bridge. The bridges going down in west Cumbria was absolutely devastating. Not only did it result in loss of life, but we lost Harbour bridge; we lost Northside bridge, where PC Barker lost his life; and we lost Navvies bridge. Workington, or Calva, bridge is still not open. On the Saturday, the Papcastle bridge was closed as well, and I talked to a taxi driver the following day. He had already agreed the fare—£5 or £6—to go from Workington to Seaton, which is a journey of about a mile. Someone standing in Workington can see Seaton. That day, the taxi driver did a 180-mile round trip: he drove from Workington to Penrith, Penrith to Carlisle, Carlisle to Maryport, and Maryport to Seaton. He then dropped his passenger off—for a fiver—and drove all the way back. That gives hon. Members some idea of the difficulties that we faced. On top of that, even when Papcastle bridge was repaired, people were still doing 20 or 30-mile round trips, when a mile would normally have done. The forbearance and patience of people in Seaton, Siddick, Northside, Barepot and further afield who were having to travel such huge distances, was absolutely incredible.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is giving a moving, telling and detailed description of the events of last year. He has talked about the travel chaos and the absolute devastation that was caused to businesses and to people’s ordinary lives, but would he, as a former teacher, care to talk about the effect on the schooling of children in our part of the world—not just the effect on academic achievement and attainment, but the impact of the disruption to their lives, including their psychological well-being?

[Tony Cunningham]

I am very happy to do that. I spoke to the then Secretary of State and the Schools Minister, and made the point that it might have to be borne in mind that, because of the disruption, some of the students would not do as well in their exams as they could have. They were having to get up two hours earlier and were then stuck in traffic, going round and round. Those who had been flooded out might have been living in a caravan, rented accommodation or a bed and breakfast, and might not have had a computer or been able to do their homework. All that had a massive effect. I was delighted that the Government gave additional funding for extra buses, but having to travel 30 miles to get to school, perhaps arriving late, and then leaving early and missing lessons so as to get back, also had a massive effect.

The big change came within a week of the floods, when we managed to get a footbridge up and running. People said to me, “Why did it take a week?” and I was thinking, “Hang on. We’ve done very well to get it done in a week.” I want to pay tribute to the Army, who did a fantastic job. I think that the footbridge came from Bedford. Getting a footbridge from there to Workington and getting 200 soldiers up there to pile both sides of the river and get a bridge across in a week was a phenomenal achievement, and it said an enormous amount about the armed forces. The local people took them to their hearts and kept going down with pizzas, cakes and sandwiches. After a few days, I spoke to the Army officer in charge and he said, “What is marvellous is that we have to do lots of drills and practices, and it’s nice to do something for real that makes a huge difference to the lives of people here.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Cunningham]

I agree. Picking up on the hon. Gentleman’s point about co-ordination, I actually began having meetings with Cockermouth flood action group before the floods, and I have had meetings with Barepot-Workington flood action group as well. One of the things I always insist on is inviting Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Lake District National Park Authority, the Highways Agency, the local council and so on. Doing so avoids the issues that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale raised. If we are all sat round the same table with the residents from the action group, it is difficult to pass the buck and say, “Well, it’s not us, it’s the county council”, or, “It’s not us, it’s Natural England”.

[Mr Reed]

The hon. Members for Penrith and The Border and for Westmorland and Lonsdale are right: more can be done that does not necessarily require additional hundreds of millions of pounds of expenditure. However, as my hon. Friend said regarding Carlisle, not only did the expenditure there save up to 3,000 homes on the night of the 2009 floods; it saved 1,200 jobs at McVitie’s biscuit factory. The cost saving there alone was well worth the £35 million that went into the flood defences.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need hard defences as well as the soft defences further on in the environment? Parton, a village in my constituency, that has suffered in the past from flooding now has its own flood action group. People take shifts at 2, 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning when the rain falls, alert each other, put down the sandbags and put in the flood barrier defences. We had council workers working in their spare time—unsalaried—and local businesses, such as drainage firms such as Mayson Bros, providing investment out of their own pocket. They were not contractors; they were doing it because they wanted to do it. That is the definition of something that has existed for 200 or 300 years—the big society. That same building company, if it is on the bones of its backside because the contracts are not coming in, and that same council worker, if he is still in a job, probably will not be inclined to put in that extra effort now—

[Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)]

Order. May I say that interventions are becoming a bit lengthy? I think we get the point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Cunningham]

I very much agree, and I want to touch on tourism a little later. There are ongoing problems; there are businesses still not back in operation and people still out of their homes. I want to highlight one particular case that I have been trying to deal with: that of Mrs Michelle Lockett, who is still not back in her home due to disputes between loss adjusters and the insurance company.

I am sure this is only a coincidence and has nothing at all to do with the debate, but, strangely enough, I got an e-mail this morning—we should remember that this situation has been going on for 12 months. In it, a guy from the National Insurance and Guarantee Corporation—the insurance company—says:

“The current position with this claim is that the majority of the Buildings element of the claim has been settled…With regards to the Contents element of the claim we have agreed to accept this part of the claim subject to the normal terms and conditions”.

I want to send a clear message to NIG and Crawford that I will be watching this case very closely.

Having said that, I am not going to have a go at all insurance companies and loss adjusters. When I meet them, they say that 70 or 80% of people are happy with what went on. There are examples of good practice among such companies. Some people in Cockermouth were back in their homes within a couple of months. I am not, therefore, having a go, but there is still a lot of work to do.

[Mr Reed]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the insurance industry, of course, also includes practitioners of whom we would not want to see too many? However, the insurance industry and the insurance companies were a pivotal component of the community’s response in getting back on its feet after the floods.

[Tony Cunningham]

Yes, absolutely. I pay tribute to the insurance companies and the good loss adjusters, but I want to remind people that things are not perfect. If people are still out of their homes after this length of time, something has obviously gone wrong.

I have a few ideas for the Minister from constituents—people such as Sue Cashmore and Michelle—about how insurance can be developed. I will not go through those ideas now, but leave them with the Minister. I ask him to take serious cognisance of them, because local people often have some very good ideas. I also had a visit from the CBI recently. It had concerns about climate change and small businesses, and perhaps I can pass on its comments and questions to the Minister.

In passing, I want to mention the consultation and the idea of a flood tax, which the Minister will no doubt comment on. There is an idea that, on top of having to pay additional—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) for securing the debate. He has been after it for some time, and I am glad that, as usual, he has succeeded. He gave me my start in politics—for good or ill—when I was briefly his researcher in the European Parliament and it is a pleasure to work alongside him now. I speak in this debate as the shadow Minister with responsibility for this policy area, but also as a constituency MP directly affected by these issues.

I wish to point to the tireless work that my hon. Friend undertook this time last year, not only for his own constituents, but for the whole of west Cumbria, including my constituents. When the floods hit, my hon. Friend was a Government Whip, so he was unable to take part in any debates. However, his constituents know what he did on the Thursday night, as the rain kept coming down. They also know about the work he threw himself into on the Friday morning, when the devastation became apparent, and about the work that he has continued doing to this very day.

It is often said that the man who is his own advocate has a fool for a client, so I feel duty-bound to say these things on my hon. Friend’s behalf. Frankly, he hides his light under a bushel. I am proud to have him as my neighbour and to work alongside him on so many issues. I am also grateful that many of my friends and family members, who live in his constituency, have him as their MP.

My hon. Friend and I were in constant contact as the disaster unfolded, and I know what he did in the midst of the chaos—no one could have done more. He ensured that skips were made available for people emptying their homes. He went to buy nappies for the child of a young mother who was in desperate need and who did not know where else to turn. In addition—and he has not mentioned this—he was pivotal in establishing the local relief fund and in prising open the Treasury’s coffers, with the help of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who is no longer in his place, for funding for bridges, temporary train services and much more. I passionately believe that he provided a definition of a first-class Member of Parliament, and of leadership. He did what he did because he believes passionately in west Cumbria’s people and potential.

The belief, optimism and hope that pervaded not just west Cumbria but Barrow and other parts of the county in November 2009 are harder to find now, as they are throughout much of the country, because in addition to the floods and the community-wide psychological effects—the trauma and devastation—caused by them, our area, as has been said, has suffered significant further trauma since then. Earlier this year, two school pupils from Keswick school were killed when their bus was involved in a road traffic accident. Such a senseless loss of life caused widespread grief throughout my constituency, throughout my hon. Friend’s constituency of Workington, in Allerdale and further afield. Soon after, as the community was still reeling from that disaster, 12 people were murdered in that quiet corner of England. The community is still dealing with that event and processing its long-term response. My heart goes out to all those who were affected, and I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members present today for the recognition and respect that they gave to them at the beginning of the proceedings.

I mention those events because they are relevant. They are issues to which the community must respond and challenges that we must meet. The pattern is clearly one of challenge after challenge. None of us can directly understand the pain caused to those families who were affected by the events, but as a community our response has been typically resilient. However, I must be entirely honest—as my hon. Friend has been and as I am sure other hon. Members will be—and say that that resilience is not helped when the community sees reductions in the number of police officers and hospital services; money for rebuilding its schools taken away; widespread redundancies at the publicly funded Sellafield nuclear facility, which is the cornerstone of our local economy; and now cuts to the national flood defence budget. Our community shows stoicism in the face of tragedy beyond our control, but anger in the face of ideologically driven political choices inflicted by a remote Government with a dubious democratic mandate. I shall move on to those issues later.

I wish to pay tribute again to PC Bill Barker, who lost his life in the floods on 20 November last year. PC Barker was a constituent of mine and few, if any, of us can know what the Barker family are going through now. As the anniversary of his death approaches, it must be particularly difficult. It is a difficult subject to talk about. However, following his ultimate sacrifice, I know that he still occupies the thoughts of our entire community. He is incredibly well thought of and is held in almost unimaginable affection in the town of Workington.

[Tony Cunningham]

I know that I have just spoken, but I want to pay tribute to Bill Barker’s wife, Hazel, who is a wonderful woman. She lost her husband and has four children. When I meet her or talk to other people about her the one thing that comes through is the incredible dignity of the woman. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend puts it better than I ever could. Mrs Barker has displayed remarkable integrity and incredible dignity and is a superb mother to her children. I am sure that her husband would have been very proud.

PC Barker gave his life serving others and did it instinctively. Many of us either would not or could not do that. His sacrifice provides a definition of heroism for us all. His heroism was commended by the then Prime Minister and the heir to the throne, but the tributes from his wife, children and colleagues dominate all the others, in my memory. He was a devoted father and husband, an extraordinary friend and a supremely committed police officer. He elicited a rare combination of love and respect from those who knew him. He gave all he had for the people he served and will for ever be remembered by the people of west Cumbria.

Last year, the towns of Workington, Keswick and Cockermouth, and the areas around them, were the places most seriously affected by the floods that hit Cumbria. In Workington and Cockermouth there was devastation that is uncommon in west Cumbria. Streets were swept away, homes were ruined, businesses were badly affected and lives were put on hold. As Alan Irving of the Whitehaven News remarked at the time, the whole community of west Cumbria came together in the wake of the floods. Rivalries were abandoned—my hon. Friend the Member for Workington and I need not talk about rivalry, as there is certainly none between us, but our towns have long been the best of enemies, in a friendly way—and the principles of community were reaffirmed across the whole of our county, with people in Whitehaven, Egremont and elsewhere showing incredible solidarity with their flooded neighbours.

On the Friday night after the floods hit, I stood in the Cockermouth sheep and wool centre in my hon. Friend’s constituency, helping as best I could, as the then deputy Regional Minister for the North West. I was overwhelmed to see my constituents fetching what food, clothing, toiletries, blankets and, in some instances, toys they could to help the people of Cockermouth and Workington who were stationed there. Those constituents of mine, who had travelled 20 or 30 miles to do so, saw it as their job and duty, and it is typical of them and of the constituents of my hon. Friend that they should have done so.

There are many thank yous and stories from the days when the floods hit, and we will tell them for a long time, but we must first understand what happened. Credit must go to the Met Office for the ability it now has to predict extremes of weather with such precision. In the days prior to the floods we knew that they were likely. Heavy rain and gales affected Cumbria from 18 to 20 November, and the associated high river flows and flooding problems were made worse by ground that had already been saturated. By 18 November, Cumbria had already received close to the average rainfall for the whole month. The floods affected more than 1,300 homes and left many more without power and water. Of all the towns and villages involved, Cockermouth, as I have said, was the worst affected. Water levels there reached 2.5 metres. The village of Seathwaite set an unenviable record of receiving 314.4 mm of rain in 24 hours—a new UK record for the wettest November day in a single location.

As the forecast heavy rain arrived, gold command, as my hon. Friend mentioned, was promptly established. I had the opportunity to visit gold command at Carlton hall in Penrith, with the then Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). The work that was undertaken there was remarkable. I have worked in the nuclear industry and am used to planning for emergency events, including evacuations, the co-ordination of local authorities and emergency services. To see the command in action was, in a strange way, reassuring. From the point of view of someone who lives in west Cumbria, having been born and raised there-—and as a council tax payer there—it was incredibly reassuring to see that the system worked, and worked well. If there are lessons to be learned from that and rolled out across the country, I would urge the Minister, who I know is sincere in his desire to improve things, to understand those lessons as well as he can.

The forecast heavy rain arrived and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington said, people were evacuated from Cockermouth by helicopter. It was a surreal experience to see on television Sea Kings hovering just above the Cockermouth main street—something we thought that we would never see and hope never to see again—irrespective of the extraordinary times that we have lived through in west Cumbria in the past 12 months. My hon. Friend was the pairing Whip at the time, and he had not let me off. Therefore fortunately—or unfortunately—I was stranded in London. My hon. Friend let himself off the Whip so he was not stranded, but that has not affected our relationship and I bear no grudges.

The rapid attendance and full attention of the then Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs was incredibly important. It gave everybody in the area a sense of solidarity and genuine togetherness. To know that politicians from all parties, but especially the country’s leading politician and the relevant Secretary of State, were with us in a time of crisis, was important. It was unprompted and genuine.

[Tony Cunningham]

Perhaps I can lighten things a little. I was in the sheep and wool centre with the Prime Minister. When he came in, he held the hand of a blind lady in a wheelchair. Somebody said, “It’s Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister”, and she said, “Y’all right, lad?” It must have been many years since the Prime Minister had been referred to as a lad, but that is typical of west Cumbria.

[Mr Reed]

I was not there, but I think I saw that on television. By that time, I was safe, warm and dry, and matters were well in hand. I recall that the Prime Minister visited on more than one occasion during those two days. He was exceptionally busy.

I was incredibly pleased at the time to learn that the Government had implemented the Bellwin scheme, and that rather than meeting 85% of costs, which I believe is typical in such incidents, the scheme was introduced in such a way as to allow 100% of costs to local authorities to be met. That was an incredibly wise move. The Government confirmed that 100% of costs would be met, rather than the standard 85% and, as my hon. Friend mentioned, it was made clear that the costs of building the temporary bridge in Workington—the Barker crossing—would be met by the Department for Transport. The Department also contributed other short-term resources to help the county implement its highways recovery plan, and ensure that all affected areas were back in working order as soon as possible.

I pay tribute to all those involved in the logistics of establishing the train service and to those who helped to establish the brand new Tesco overnight, which was adjacent to the train service. It is a tribute to the feats that people can achieve in times of crisis. I pay tribute to Cumbria police, under the fantastic leadership of chief constable Craig Mackey, and to the county council, under the leadership of Jill Stannard, who I believe had been made chief executive that very day. I thank Cumbria fire and rescue service, the local NHS, the Environment Agency and all the welfare charities that have been mentioned. I also mention British Telecom and other utility companies, our magnificent armed forces and reservists, and many others who acted in superb concert as the floods hit.

The media have been mentioned briefly. Radio Cumbria was absolutely indispensible at the time. It became an irreplaceable service which, in my opinion, immediately demonstrated the value and strength of public service broadcasting—something that no other organisation could have provided. Border Television from the independent sector was also incredibly impressive.

As I went around the flooded areas, it became clear from several conversations I had just how vital the mountain rescue teams had been, especially in Keswick. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) is no longer in his place, but he is right. For many years he has been a stalwart advocate of the need for mountain rescue teams to have their VAT refunded. When the Labour party was in government, I joined him in that view, both privately and publicly, and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington also joined in the debate, privately and often stridently. I certainly agree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and I know that the Minister will take note of that point. It is a difficult issue because in our part of the world, and in many other places like Cumbria such as the Pennines, mountain rescue is a vital emergency service.

A number of organisations acted in remarkable concert. After speaking to people in Keswick about the mountain rescue service I was left in no doubt as to what the service provided. The case for financial help from the state is irrefutable. I mention the big society but not in a pejorative sense. Quite simply, if one seeks a definition for the kinds of things that underpin that centuries-old concept, the mountain rescue teams provide one such example. They offer services that no one else can, or will, provide.

Away from the heavily hit areas, many other towns and villages in west Cumbria were affected by the flooding. In some quarters, they were referred to as “the forgotten flooded”—places such as Parton, Cleator, Holmrook, Bootle, Egremont, Lorton and elsewhere. Thankfully, those areas did not witness the same devastation as Workington and Cockermouth, but they endured real suffering that was equally deserving of Government resources and support. At the time, I made the case in the Chamber that such support should have been forthcoming. I saw the effects of the flooding on those communities, and I pointed out that no community should be left behind. As a country, we need to take forward that principle and enshrine it in our flood defence policies.

Ultimately, the costs of recovery in Cumbria are not yet fully known. If we look at the insurance claims that have been made and paid so far, they are in excess of £200 million. However, we do not know what the effect has been on the economy or the tourism industry, and we do not yet know the long-term effects on agriculture and other sectors, so the final figure will be significantly in excess of £200 million.

My hon. Friend the Member for Workington paid tribute to a number of ordinary people who were involved in the response to the floods when they hit. I wish to take the opportunity to pay tribute again to a special Copeland borough councillor, Councillor David Banks. When the banks of the River Ehen burst and houses along the banks of that river were flooded, he went to the aid of some elderly people who lived in his patch. With his bare hands, in the deluge and the pouring rain, he tried to rebuild the river bank with stones and baskets as the rain kept coming. That is the kind of people we are. Whenever my hon. Friend and I have taken part in debates such as this over the past 12 months, such statements have almost become a cliché, but it is no less true. That is the kind of people we are in west Cumbria and people such as Councillor Banks are the kind of public servants that we need.

As the people in the village of Parton taught me five years ago, it takes only a little bit of water to cause immense damage and for a flood to have a huge impact on the life of a family and its memories. Just one foot of water can ruin a home and destroy treasured and irreplaceable possessions such as invaluable photographs and mementos of children and other loved ones. Floods take away so much that can never be replaced.

The Environment Agency is among those organisations that have been pivotal in achieving recovery from the floods, not just at the time but since then. In the six months following the flooding, it extended the free flood warning service to an additional 3,000 Cumbrian homes and businesses. It began work with 30 flood action groups and commissioned a £100,000 study to look at the current standards of flood protection and possible options to reduce future flood risk in Cockermouth. In Keswick, it invested more than £700,000 in flood defence walls in the High Hill area, and in Ulverston it repaired existing flood defences and improved other flood defences to certain properties.

Before the floods last year, Carlisle had received significant investment in defences—between £30 million and £35 million—following the floods of 2005. Cockermouth, Keswick and Ulverston had all benefited from some flood defence investment under the last Government, and much more was planned. For example, in Keswick, which is now in my constituency following the boundary change before the last election, the Environment Agency had done a study to justify improvement works and had allocated funding to design works in 2010-11 for construction at an estimated cost of £5 million. I ask the Minister in all sincerity and with genuine respect to ensure that those works proceed. I certainly hope that they do. I have written to the Secretary of State regarding that issue, and I hope that the Minister can today give my constituents in Keswick the assurances that they seek about the flood works that they expect to take place there.

In Ulverston, funding had been allocated for 2010-11 to develop a scheme for Dragley beck, which is programmed for construction in 2011-12 at a cost of £2 million. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington will want it to be taken forward as well. The project at Dragley beck would raise the existing once-in-20-years standard of flood protection to once in 70 years. For Cockermouth, indicative funding is in place to begin studying a potential scheme in 2012-13.

The Environment Agency brought forward other schemes for Cumbria under the previous Government. In the light of the cuts, can the Minister notify Cumbrian local authorities about which flood defence schemes will be continued and which will be scrapped? The people of Cumbria have a right to know that as a matter of urgency. Heavy rainfall has raised the spectre of flooding again in the past few days. Flooding has been a real possibility in Keswick and elsewhere, and we need to know where we stand.

Flooding is one of the most difficult issues facing the nation. It is likely to happen more, not less. Carlisle flooded in 2005, before the horrendous floods in 2007 and the Cumbrian floods in 2009. We need to be able to meet the practical and policy challenges that flooding poses. The nature of that policy challenge for every community at risk of flooding means that it must be properly resourced by Government. The previous Labour Government more than doubled spending on the management of flood risk. That is beyond doubt: it is irrefutable. We are talking about west Cumbria today, but none of us should forget the other communities that have been affected by flooding devastation. I think that the costs of the floods in 2007 were in excess of £3 billion. Thirteen lives were lost. None of us should forget that.

Between 2007 and 2009, the Environment Agency completed 106 flood defence schemes. Will the Minister tell us how many flood defence schemes will be undertaken by the agency under its newly cut budget, year by year for the life of this Parliament? Further to that, will he tell us where those schemes will be? Communities such as those in Leeds and elsewhere need to know what is happening to their flood defence capability.

I genuinely look forward to working with the Government and with the Minister on issues on which we agree. Flooding should not be a party political issue. It should be an issue of national interest, on which we all work in concert to achieve the best results. However, an air of chaos is creeping into flood defence policy and planning in DEFRA. The £170 million cut in flood defence budgets just is not necessary. Indeed, it is fundamentally wrong. We all want to see greater efficiency in how public money is spent. I support the Minister on that, but I cannot support a £110 million cut in capital spending and a cut in excess of £60 million in flood and coastal erosion defence maintenance budgets.

The Association of British Insurers has expressed its disappointment. The insurance company Liverpool Victoria believes that reducing current flood defence maintenance budgets means that

“thousands of homes still at risk of flooding may lose home insurance cover.”

The Institution of Civil Engineers has also expressed concerns about the cuts in flood defence budgets. Now, the people of this country who live in areas of flood risk are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington mentioned, haunted by the spectre of a flood tax. A Conservative Member said earlier from a sedentary position that that was a myth. I hope so and I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to explain why that is the case when he makes his remarks.

We know that the statement of principle between insurers and Government expires in 2013, which is only a few years away. Negotiation on that issue will be complex, so can the Minister tell hon. Members about the plan? Where are we going on this issue? Will he now publish the road map that was mentioned following the insurance summit in September?

We are used to the English language being assaulted by the present Government. The Prime Minister achieves nothing in Europe, but calls that a “spectacular success”. The Secretary of State for Health claims to match Labour’s spending, yet Conservative MPs from up and down the country tell me that hospital wards are being closed by stealth. Instead of being freed of red tape, police officers are actually being freed of their jobs. The Chancellor of the Exchequer claims to be protecting more homes from flooding by cutting the flood defence budget, and the self-proclaimed “greenest Government ever” will struggle to be the greenest Government of 2010. Welcome to the world of DEFRA-nomics, where we are meant to believe that those most affected by the cuts being imposed are, perversely, the most happy at the prospect. That will not wash.

Tragically—and there is an air of tragedy around this, as I have said—DEFRA Ministers currently occupy one of two positions. Either they actively want the Government to abandon their responsibilities or, as they used to refer to it, “get out of the way” and therefore are happy for these ideological cuts to affect flood defences in an exceptionally damaging way, or they really have no understanding of how the cuts will affect homes, businesses and communities up and down the country. The former is almost worse, because it would suggest that the likely effects of the cuts are understood, but are being disregarded. Which is it? Surely the cuts cannot have been made in ignorance. Surely they cannot have been planned in ignorance and will not be prosecuted in ignorance.

Will the Minister tell us today which flood defence schemes in which areas will be cut and which will proceed? Will he take the opportunity to tell us what discussions he has had with which local authorities about how they should pick up the flood defence burden, particularly in the light of cuts in their own budgets? Will he tell us how many flood defence schemes will go ahead for each year of this Parliament and where those schemes will be located? I hope that if he cannot tell me or other hon. Members that today, he will undertake to write to me or place a paper in the Library detailing where cuts in flood defence projects will be made.

Flood damage costs in England alone are more than £1 billion a year. According to Environment Agency calculations, one in six homes in England is at risk from flooding. More than 2.4 million properties are at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea in England, and half of those are at significant risk. The Minister is aware of the figures. A further 2.8 million properties are vulnerable to surface water flooding. The Environment Agency calculates that in the worst-case scenario, annual flood damage costs could exceed £27 billion across the UK by 2080. Clearly, that is some way off, but it is a rate of increase that none of us would want.

This is no time to be playing fast and loose with our flood defences, no time for DEFRA-nomics and no time for cutting flood defence budgets. If the Government will not change their mind in the face of overwhelming evidence, independent advice and the experiences of very real human suffering that we know flooding causes, they must at least be honest about where their axe will fall and which communities they will abandon. We need transparency and honesty, but most of all, we need the Government to think again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I give my hon. Friend that assurance. Sustainable development cannot be delivered by one Government Department alone. In fact, the Cabinet Office has a cross-cutting role and will report on pan-Government progress against the targets for the sustainable operations of the Government estate. The latest performance data will be published by the end of the year.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

One key performance objective on environmental sustainability is protection from flooding. The Association of British Insurers has expressed disappointment at the Government’s cuts to flood defence spending, and the Institute of Civil Engineers estimates that the cuts could cost us £4.8 billion in future. How will those cuts affect the insurance premiums and excesses of those 5.5 million British properties that are currently at risk from flooding? Can she give a guarantee that the cuts will not lead to any properties becoming either uninsurable or unmortgageable?

[Mrs Spelman]

I can assure the House that the Government are working very closely with the ABI on the question of insurance. Its statement of principles is up for renegotiation in 2013. My impression of the situation is different from the hon. Gentleman’s, because actually the ABI welcomed the fact that much of the capital for flood defences was protected, so the Government can spend £2.1 billion on flood defences within the spending review period. There will be an 8% reduction per annum, but a lot of that can be absorbed in efficiencies, as the Environment Agency demonstrated this year by building more than its target of flood defences notwithstanding a 5.5% reduction in its resources.

Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

The right hon. Gentleman is going to have to do better than that—it is just a load of old hot air. He is trying to increase our target, but he is taking away one of the key levers needed to help us meet the target. You do not have to take my word for that, Mr Speaker—you can take the word of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, who supported our position. If he would like to intervene to tell me, or his former right hon. Friend, who is now the Secretary of State, that he agrees that local councils need to contribute to the 15% target, I would be very happy to give way to him. [Interruption.] I think that says it all. The splits are already appearing.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

Surely, it is worse than that. By starting again with the planning regulations, we are going to lose all the momentum we have developed over the past three or four years, and we are going to encourage investors to go to other parts not only of Europe but of the world.

[Edward Miliband]

My hon. Friend anticipates a later section of my speech. He makes a very important point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). I suspect that some of his speech was aimed at a slightly wider audience than even the very large number of colleagues present today, and of course we wish him well with his leadership ambitions. However, I found it rather difficult to tally his enthusiasm for nuclear power with the appalling record of the previous Labour Government, who did not add a single watt of new nuclear generating capacity in 13 long years. We are entitled to a better explanation of why they failed so dismally to do that.

[Mr Reed]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Fallon]

I want, first, to make a little progress, if I may.

I welcome the Queen’s Speech, because it tackles three of the biggest issues that we as a country face. It makes a start on restoring our public finances, on mending our broken society and on modernising our political system, and I shall say a little about each of those issues.

On public finances, we have already welcomed the strong start that the Treasury made on Monday by making immediate savings in public expenditure. A start simply had to be made. If one spends £700 billion a year but raises only £540 billion a year in taxes, something must be done, and I welcome the fact that this Government, unlike their predecessors, did not sit on their hands but made a start. I welcome also the Chief Secretary’s recognition on Monday that that was only a small step: £6.2 billion is well under 1% of total Government expenditure, and more significant savings will have to be made.

I, unlike the right hon. Member for Doncaster North, was pleased by the reference to Greece, because there is a parallel between our deficit situation and the one in Greece. The Greek Government, like our previous Government, were warned successively by the European Commission, the OECD and the International Monetary Fund, but both Governments ignored those warnings and let their deficits continue to accumulate. So there is a warning from Greece: if we do not tackle the fundamental causes of our deficit as rapidly as possible, we are likely to lose the confidence of the markets.

I therefore look forward to the much more difficult task that my right hon. Friends face in the spending review that they will conduct through the summer and autumn. It seems obvious to me, even from Monday’s announcements, that the necessary elimination of waste and the search for efficiency savings, although worth while in themselves, will not be enough. If we are to protect the front-line services that we support and the basic budgets of Departments that are not wholly protected, it seems obvious that, first, some established programmes, however cherished, will have to be revised; and that, secondly, we will have to look at annually managed expenditure—the so-called benefit element of public expenditure. It remains the case that many benefit entitlements go relatively high up the income scale, and, if we are to spread the burden of the painful adjustments that are necessary, it does not seem credible to exempt those who are on middle or higher incomes and currently enjoy a wide range of benefits. Importantly, however, the spending review must be conducted fairly and responsibly, spreading the load that is imposed when either expenditure is withdrawn or taxation increased.

The Queen’s Speech also makes a start on building a stronger society, and just as important as abstractions, such as the big society, are the practical measures that will extend choice throughout our public services, improve the service that our constituents receive when they use public services and promote more responsibility by users and, perhaps, more awareness of the obligations that come with their use.

In education, I particularly welcome the new drive to attract fresh providers into our system. However, important though that is—and it is important, particularly in some of the inner-city areas of our country, where standards need to be much higher—there is also great advantage to be gained from the additional freedoms that are proposed for all schools, existing and new. Those freedoms will give head teachers and their governors the real power, which they have long wanted, to get away from Government targets and to set their own terms, conditions and priorities. I see nothing wrong in encouraging our schools to be different. Since my days in the Department of Education and Science, I have wanted to get away from the homogeneity of council schooling and encourage more schools, which, while following the core curriculum, are different in their outlook, and cater for the different abilities and talents of the children whose parents choose them. That will be a test of the new education legislation.

While I am on the subject of the new academies Bill, perhaps I could put in a plea, notwithstanding my earlier remarks about public expenditure, for the Government to follow through fully the commitment to the new Knole academy in Sevenoaks. The commitment was signed in January and my constituents will expect that to be followed through.

In west Kent, we have a particular problem, to which I would like to draw to my right hon. Friends’ attention—the pressure on grammar school places. We have a grammar school system in Kent, and it has always been made clear that the demand for more places needs to be addressed. There is not only an increasing birth rate and more demand for grammar school places, but some 300 pupils now come across our border from East Sussex, Bromley and Bexley and take places in our grammar schools in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. That issue needs to be tackled.

I want to consider the measures in the Queen’s Speech to reform our politics. I understand the need for a coalition agreement and the compromises that bind it. I must say that when I was campaigning for re-election in Sevenoaks, nobody asked me for a fixed-term Parliament or came to the door and said that we needed the alternative vote plus system. Those issues were not raised with me, but I found that people were crying out for a more proper and fuller connection with their political institutions. I found, as I am sure that my hon. Friends did, a frightening gap between people with problems and the layers of local, country and national politicians who were supposed to deal with them.

Nowhere is that better illustrated than in the St Mary’s ward of Swanley in my constituency, where in February last year the British National party won what had hitherto been the safest Labour seat in Swanley and secured its first council seat on Sevenoaks district council. St Mary’s was not just the safest Labour ward in my constituency, but the poorest. It is striking that that ward, which I visit frequently, despite all the efforts of those who work in it—community workers, schools, including Amanda McGarrigle and her team at St Mary’s primary school, and local councillors—as well as the efforts of Government, has not shared in the increased prosperity and job prospects that the rest of the county enjoyed under the previous two or three Governments. We need to reflect more deeply on the reason for that.

There was a fashionable debate in our party a few years ago about whether Winston Churchill or Polly Toynbee was the better marker to follow. Churchill famously said that a rising tide lifts all boats, whereas I think Ms Toynbee argued for her vision of a caravan proceeding across the desert at the pace of its slowest members. Neither approach has worked in some of our poorest wards in the past 10, 20 or 30 years. If I concede that the benefits of markets alone have not trickled down sufficiently to some of the very poor areas of our country, I hope that the Labour party will concede that a whole raft of Government action, ministerial targets and misdirected public expenditure has not succeeded either.

That means that we must look to another way for those pockets of deprivation that remain. I hesitate to call it a third way, but it is in the Queen’s Speech: it is, of course, localism. It means giving power back through the rafts of politics and politicians to the local community and encouraging people who live in those wards to take much more responsibility. It means giving them the freedom to take responsibility for finding the solutions to their problems. It may well be, having sorted out the public finances and helped rebuild a stronger society, that the Government’s success will ultimately depend on the genuineness of their commitment in practice to delivering localism to our communities.

I welcome the Queen’s Speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) and the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), both of whom were generous to their predecessors and passionate advocates for their communities. They are welcome additions to the House and I have no doubt that they will benefit our public life.

Let me also pay tribute to the former, now shadow, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). He undertook his duties with rare passion, commitment and insight, and I believe that all of us, in the House and in the country, are the better for it. In Copenhagen no one worked harder to secure a deal, and at home I expect the heavy lifting represented by the last Government’s energy policy to bring substantial relief to the new Government. I urge them to build on what we achieved. I certainly hope that they will do so, especially when it comes to nuclear energy, on which I declare my usual interests.

Let me also congratulate the new Secretary of State and the new Minister of State, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), on their appointments. It would have been an unlikely pairing only a few weeks ago, but I wish them both every success. Energy policy is undoubtedly one of the most important issues of our age, and as such it should be above the often petty squabbles of party politics both inside and outside this place. Energy policy and the increasingly vital set of policies that rest upon it—particularly environmental and economic policies—require a common approach supported by a broad consensus of support. I look forward to playing my part in helping to achieve that and achieving it quickly, because time is running out for us all. Critical decisions must be made now, and the momentum established by the last Government must be maintained in the national interest, the interests of the House and the interests of the people of this country.

Although I was pleased to note the reference to energy policy in the Queen’s Speech, I regretted the absence of any specific mention of nuclear energy, on which I now wish to concentrate. Some important issues need to be clarified and I hope that either the Secretary of State or the Minister of State will address them.

Let me begin with the subsidy for nuclear power generation. Much has been said today, and written in recent weeks, by the new Ministers, but clarification is now urgently required, not just for the House but for investors. I have always supported public subsidies for new nuclear generation, which I consider necessary to facilitate its establishment in the United Kingdom. After all, nearly every energy source in the UK receives, or will soon receive, one subsidy or another—for instance, through grants for landowners to grow biofuels or erect windmills, for the establishment of gas storage facilities, or for the development of carbon capture and storage. All those activities are in some way subsidised by the public purse. It is recognised throughout the developed world that energy policy and power generation are too important to be left to the market; they need the strategic support and intervention of Government. Why should nuclear be different?

Let us consider what subsidies will be necessary for new nuclear generation in this country. The Civil Nuclear Constabulary is an essential part of our nuclear industry, as are the Office for Civil Nuclear Security and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. All those bodies exist to support our nuclear industry, and all are supported by significant sums of public money. Does that funding, which is wholly and exclusively required by and because of the nuclear industry, represent a subsidy for the industry? By any definition, it does. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has no plans to remove these organisations or reduce their budgets?

The national grid requires serious public investment to facilitate the new generation of new nuclear power stations that the nation needs. The case for it is unarguable. Is that a subsidy? Will the Secretary of State commit himself today to making the necessary investments, along with new nuclear developers, to make new nuclear happen now, particularly in my constituency?

The process of establishing an underground deep waste repository—physically, economically and politically—will require billions of pounds of public money, some of which will be required during the present Parliament. New nuclear development demands that the project finally be implemented. Is that a subsidy? Will the Secretary of State commit himself today to continuing the policies of the last Government in that policy area, particularly in connection with the principle of voluntarism?

Britain’s nuclear renaissance could and should create about 100,000 new jobs, well paid and highly skilled, but our manufacturing base requires strategic help to maximise the benefits of our nuclear programme. Sheffield Forgemasters, and other crucial elements of the supply chain in West Cumbria and Barrow, require financial support from Government to help us to develop our industrial capacity and capability and to deliver our programme. Is that a subsidy, and can the Secretary of State confirm today that all pledges of financial support for the supply chain made before 6 May will now be honoured in the national interest?

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which is by far the biggest departmental financial responsibility of the Secretary of State, undertakes remarkable and unique work. Its establishment was necessary and a real success of the last Government. I shall deal with NDA issues in more depth shortly, but let me say now that the NDA sustains the UK’s nuclear work force and the skills base that is necessary if our new nuclear programme is to succeed. Public money is required. Is that a subsidy?

I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister of State for visiting the Sellafield site in my constituency yesterday to apprise themselves of issues associated with it and with the NDA. It was a welcome portent, and I am grateful for them for visiting the site at such an early stage. However, it is important for those who pursue policies in this sphere to recognise not just the successes but the failures of the past. I do not think that we should look to the United States for examples of what to do; it is probably better to look to it for what not to do. It is imperative, however, that funding for the NDA and for nuclear decommissioning, particularly at Sellafield, is not only ring-fenced but increased. The decommissioning mission, and the credibility of the nuclear industry and the nuclear renaissance, depend on our ability to undertake those tasks.

[Albert Owen]

Once again, my hon. Friend is showing great expertise. Would not one way of helping the NDA to obtain resources be to extend current nuclear power station generation? Nuclear power stations are safer now than they have ever been. Such action would not only help the NDA, but meet our future energy requirements.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I hope that he and I can lend our expertise to the new Government so that the issues can be examined in a considered, grown-up way, and solutions found that will benefit not just the NDA but our communities. The commercial missions for which the NDA is responsible, particularly reprocessing and fuel manufacture at Sellafield, must surely continue. THORP, the thermal oxide reprocessing plant at Sellafield, is still the largest single yen earner in the United Kingdom economy.

The Sellafield MOX plant has had its problems—they are well detailed and we know them—but it has just secured some new contracts. Together, they represent potentially billions of pounds of investment into the UK economy and the local economy. Increasing commercial revenues is also the single most effective way of reducing the decommissioning burden upon the taxpayer. I look forward to working not only with the Minister of State and Secretary of State, but with everybody who has an interest in these issues across the House to make sure that that takes place.

I will always work with anyone on either side of the House who understands the needs of my constituents and recognises and supports the ambitions of my community in the way that the last Labour Government did. So far, however, there are a number of weaknesses that I am duty bound to point out in the approach towards nuclear that the coalition Government have expressed. I want to help the Government to remove these weaknesses, but it will require change on their part.

The notion of no new nuclear without any public subsidy should be abandoned. Public money inevitably will be used in the way in which I have outlined. Funding for the NDA must not only be maintained, but increased. The NDA, a vital and uniquely important body, must itself be maintained and unequivocally supported. Above all, the energy coast programme, enthusiastically supported by two previous Prime Ministers and the last Government, must be supported and funded. The programme of works within the plan is entirely within the national interest. Let me be clear; if the funding pledged by the last Government to the new West Cumberland hospital, to our cottage hospitals in Keswick and Milham, to our new health centres, to our new schools and to higher education investment and more is cut by the Government, the consequences of that for my constituents, and for the Government, will be profound.

We must continue to secure new reprocessing contracts and fuel manufacturing contracts at Sellafield. Refusal to do this would be to work against the best interests of this country. As an Opposition Member, I am paid to scrutinise but I will not oppose for the sake of it. Where I believe the new Government get energy policy right, I will support them. Where I believe they get it wrong, I will not. I wish them well. Let us quickly remove these potentially very serious weaknesses and work together.